Photography travelling solo

I thought I would make a blog about one of the things I found hard to start with when solo travelling and that was getting the right photographs with myself in. I am really not the greatest fan of the ‘selfie stick’ I don’t like how your arm is left holding the stick in the picture, I can never get it to look great like other travellers.

I always look at other travellers pictures and base the picture I want on how theirs turns out. I get to the spot I want the picture and I can never get it to look perfect. So it takes me a lot of attempts at times to get that ‘perfect’ picture.

When I first started travelling I found it hard to go up to someone and ask them to take my picture for a number of reasons; first I felt silly to ask someone to take my picture, I thought they would find it funny how specific I wanted the picture to be. The language barrier was also an issue as I found a number of times trying to talk to someone they would just walk away. Having a specific picture I wanted in my head a lot of the time I would have to ask several people to take the picture. I was always grateful that someone would take the time to take a random travellers picture, but people would either miss the background I wanted in the picture, or zoom in to just me which I did not want. I remember when I was in Barcelona I went up to a girl from France and said to her I was going to climb up on a wall to get the perfect picture of the view from the Bunkers view point. She took my picture and I was not entirely happy with it so I showed her a picture from another travellers Instagram which included all the view I wanted. After this she took the most perfect picture for me and I then took pictures for her.

I soon realised travelling solo that a lot of people who you meet are also solo travellers and they are happy to take your picture. Having the confidence to go up to someone who you have never met before may be the best thing you could do on your trips, as you get to talk to so many people from different countries. I made a few social media friends through just asking someone to take my picture.

My friends back home are always asking me if I have a personal photographer with me on my trips and they are surprised when my reply is ‘no I ask people to take my pictures’ I found with travelling solo it brings a lot more confidence in you. Before I started travelling I was pretty shy but now I find I can just go up to anyone and start talking to them.

I absolutely love that when I look at my pictures each has a story behind it and I remember exactly who took that picture for me. My photos speak a thousand words and I am so grateful to everyone I have met on my travels just by taking my picture.

 

Can you just imagine how long it took for me to get the perfect shot with these pictures?…

 

What I use for my picture taking

 

For my pictures I don’t have a fancy camera, all I use is my iPhone 6 plus. Sometimes I look at other travellers with the big cameras and think I should get one. They look so professional, but at the same time I think how much space that camera would take in my backpack. My pictures turn out pretty good just on my iPhone and with a cheeky edit personally I think they look travel photography worthy.

I am currently looking at getting myself a go pro, they are small enough to carry and I want to start adding videos to my travel blogs. I go to Santorini on my own in April and really want one before then, so I can capture the perfect sunsets.

Who has a go pro and what are the best ones to get? I don’t want to spend a fortune as that money could go to my next trip 😉

 

Thank you for reading

If you have any tips on go pros or good picture edits I can use then please let me know in the comments 🙂

 

Miss Coddiwomple xx